Saturday, April 28, 2012

The Scholars Academy Principal Steve McClenning and assistant Billie Madewell have both lost their jobs after the two were caught passionately making out on video,KTVK-TV reports.

According to the station, the video was taken on the cellphone of 16-year-old Myranda Garber at the Quartzsite, Ariz. school. A school board member also confirmed to KTVK that the principal resigned from his position, while the secretary was fired.

The incident comes at a bad time for the school, which is not getting its charter status renewed. While the academy is appealing the decision to the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools, many fear the town will not have a school next year, and many of the students feel betrayed.

“It’s just a smack in the face as far as I’m concerned,” student Joseph Hager told KNXV-TV.

Breaking up is never easy -- having 32 teeth ripped out is even worse.

A scorned dentist is facing jail time after surgically removing all of her ex-boyfriend's teeth after he dumped her, authorities in London said.

Marek Olszewski, 45, made the mistake of scheduling an appointment this week with his ex -- 34-year-old Anna Mackowiak -- for a toothache, according to the Daily Mail.

So Mackowiak allegedly did what any burned beau with a set of pliers and some anesthetic would do: she doped him up, pulled out all his teeth, and wrapped his head with bandages so he wouldn't notice until he left her office.

"I tried to be professional and detach myself from my emotions," she told the news site. "But when I saw him lying there I just thought, 'What a b-----d.'"

Olszewski could tell something was wrong when he awoke and couldn't feel any teeth in his mouth. But he said Mackowiak assured him that he'd be fine once the numbness wore off, NDTV reported.

"I didn't have any reason to doubt her -- I mean I thought she was a professional," he said.

Friday, April 27, 2012

A Florida judge refused to increase the bail for George Zimmerman, the town watch volunteer charged with murdering unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin, after prosecutors revealed he had raised about $200,000 from supporters.

"I'm not going to make a snap decision," Florida Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester Jr. said during a hearing Friday in Sanford, where Martin, 17, was shot to death in late February. Lester said he needed more information about Zimmerman's fundraising before he could reconsider increasing the bond, according to reports.

Zimmerman, charged with second-degree murder, was released from the John E. Polk correctional facility in Sanford on $150,000 bond earlier this week. He's currently at an undisclosed location. During an earlier bond hearing, Zimmerman and his family said they were cash-broke and unable to post substantial bond.

Zimmerman's money, according to reports, was raised from anonymous supporters through a website Zimmerman launched to pay for his defense. Zimmerman's attorney, Mark O'Mara, told the judge on Friday that Zimmerman's family hadn't informed him about the money before Zimmerman was granted the $150,000 bond.

Prosecutor Bernardo de la Rionda asked the judge to reconsider the amount of Zimmerman’s bond in light of the money. Benjamin Crump, an attorney for Martin's family, said he was surprised the prosecutor didn't seek to revoke Zimmerman's bail.

“For [Zimmerman] to sit there and deceive the court, we hope the judge is as offended by his deception as Trayvon Martin’s parents are,” Crump told HuffPost.

Crump said Zimmerman “lied to the court by omission when he listened to his father, his mother and his wife give testimony when they were questioned by the special prosecutor, by the judge as well as his own attorney as to how much money was raised on that website.”

Black youths arrested in Memphis, Tennessee, were much more likely than white juveniles to be jailed and tried as adults, discriminatory practices that also affect Hispanic youths in other cities, the Justice Department said on Thursday.

A review of 66,000 juvenile court cases in Memphis, where numerous abuses drew Justice Department investigators in 2009, revealed "serious and systemic failures" in the way youthful offenders were treated, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas Perez of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said.

"We found African-American children treated differently and more harshly," Perez said, summarizing the findings of the department's report in a conference call withreporters.

Black juveniles who were arrested in Memphis and surrounding Shelby County were twice as likely as whites to be detained in jail and twice as likely to be recommended for transfer to adult court, where a conviction generally brings harsher punishment, Perez said.

Juveniles prosecuted as adults are more prone to commit new crimes after release, he said.

In addition to racial and ethnic discrimination, the report said it found other problems in the Memphis and Shelby County juvenile justice system.

The Justice Department said it uncovered failures to protect juvenile suspects from self-incrimination, a pattern of youths arrested without a warrant not getting timely hearings, inadequate protections for detained juveniles who were in danger of harming themselves, and a tendency for jailers to overuse physical restraints on juveniles.

The problems experienced by juveniles in Memphis and Shelby County - which has a population of 928,000, more than half of them black - were singled out by the Justice Department but the area is not alone, Perez said.

Cops said on Wednesday that they expect to arrest three more suspects involved in the fight, but added that the so-called "mob" consisted mostly of bystanders, WKRG reported.

"What we know is that Mr. Owens was fussing at some kids about playing basketball in the street," said Levy. "These kids then went back and told their parents about the exchange they had with Mr. Owens."

The adults "were having a get together down the street, [and] came down to where Mr. Owens is, and there was a series of racial slurs exchanged, and there was a fight," said Levy.

He ruled out that it was a hate crime and said that the Trayvon Martin shooting wasn't a motivating factor, according to media reports.

"When you're a black man playing in a predominantly white man's sport, you've got to come to expect things like that," Simmonds said at the time. "Over the past 23 years of my life, I've come to expect some things like that. But I'm older and more mature now, I kind of just left things roll off [my back]. I try not to think about stuff like that."